Halloween Memoir Contest Winners Announced

Ghosts and Goblins, Spooks and Spiders: Memoir Contest Winners Announced

Happy Halloween. This is a special day — especially for children with a sweet tooth. Traditions change over the years. When I was young, simple costumes were put together out of what was around the house, sewed new, or store bought. Nothing very expensive because it would only be used once. We were allowed to walk in our block. There were a lot of caramel apples given out as well as little pieces of candy, many of these cooked for the occasion. In recent years, I’ve heard of parents driving their children to wealthy neighborhoods where fancy boxes of candy are given out.

Kendra’s story takes on another twist. Her mother began decorating on October 1 as Halloween was her favorite holiday. You’ll find her full Halloween story here. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a must-read vignette.

Women’s Memoirs Halloween contest brought in many fascinating stories. We’ve chosen the best for you and hope you enjoy reading them over the coming months as we publish them.

Kendra Bonnett and I are thrilled at the large number of women who sent us their memoir contest entries as well as the variety in the stories. It seems that the theme evoked many memories. We have entries both from women who have entered before and from women who have entered for the first time. As you read stories by our contest winners, you may think, “Hey. I’ve got a great story I want to share. Maybe I’ll enter a contest.” And yes, please do enter. We have two more contests this year and you’ll find the contest list on our website.

The entries this month both surprised and pleased us. They were fun to read and we hope you’ll enjoy those we’ve selected as winners. This afternoon, we’ll publish our Grand Winner and later we’ll publish the others.

Note: Submitted a story but didn’t win this month? Kendra and I want you to know that we appreciate your contest entry. Submitting a story always takes us out of our comfort zone. You should feel good that you did enter. We hope you will enter one of our future contests. There are two more topics in this year’s contests. For the complete list, go to:http://WomensMemoirs.com/contests.

Following is the complete list of our Halloween memoir contest winners.

MEMOIR CONTEST WINNERS

GRAND WINNER

Sara Etgen-Baker for To Oz? Yes, to Oz!

HALLOWEEN FROM A CHILD’S PERSPECTIVE

First Place

Mairi Nell for Guising and Galoshens

Honorable Mentions

(in alphabetical order)

Catherine Lanser for Costume Accessory

Sherry Meyer for A Trick or Treat Bag Full of Fear

HALLOWEEN FROM THE ADULT’S PERSPECTIVE

First Place

Ronda Armstrong for Puttin’ On the Mask

Honorable Mentions

(in alphabetical order)

Cindy Briggs for Harvest Haunts

Linda Hoagland for The Slamming Door

Linda Mussilo for The New Halloween

Congratulations to these memoir winners. We’re sure you’ll enjoy reading their stories. Visit this site at noon (PDT) when the Grand Winner’s story is published.